God damn computers

[Greedyfly]

Please can someone shed some light on this problem?. My boyfriend is pretty good with computers and is always changin and adding things to his (computer), but recently he changed the case for a bigger one, now the computer worked fine for about two months, then one day it just stopped - so he changed the case back to the original. Now again the computer worked fine for a while then just stopped coming on, the lights come on and it sounds like like its starting up then it dies, so again he stripped it and checked everything but still could find nothing wrong. Now we know for certain it isn't overheating but we can't think of anything else that we haven't tried or ruled out. And short of throwing the damn thing out of the window He's not sure what to do! Please can anyone help?....

[coemgen]

From what you've said, it could be absolutely anything! PCs are notoriously temperamental. I vivdly remember when ours wouldn't work no matter what we did, (my husband is a computer whizz like yours) and it turned out that the problem was solved just by turning a screw on the motherboard just a fraction tighter. Unbelievable.

[carlos]

If both the hard drive light and the power light come on, and stay on, then it sounds like the same problem that I had. The reason was that the system had overheated, and the motherboard had earthed against the metal plate behind it, at least that's what my local repair shop told me(I don't know much about computer repair!). Anyway, it was cured by putting carbon washers on the screws fixing the motherboard to the metal plate, stopping the two from touching - cost me �5! Your boyfriend will probably know how to do this so it won't cost much! The same problem happened again about 9 months later though. Same symptoms, but the cause this time was 2 capacitors on the motherboard which had blown, which meant that I had to buy a new motherboard so I hope the first solution fixes it for you.

[lisaj]

Carlos: doesn't carbon conduct electricity?! Greedyfly, your best bet is to check the video card is properly seated in it's slot. Even the slightest bit misalignment here can cause your symptoms, and this has been the cause of roughly half the 'odd' machine problems I've come across over the years.

[Phantaxus]

also if you have other cards take them all out apart from the video card. power up, if it works power off and add the cards back one by one. power up after adding each card untill you either have them all in or find one that is suspect

[banana]

I have had this problem from time to time .I have changed lots of parts on my computer and now it seems that because of all the moving in and out Ive been doing,somehow it has altered the way the whole caboodle 'seats' in the case so that sometimes the switch gets jammed .Wrangling with the casing and trying again usually works.

[blakeysauras]

I had a similar problem and figured that something may have come lose graphics card etc. so I re-seated all of them and it still didn't work. Finally I took the processor out to discover that there was some dirt on one of the contacts. After cleaning it, it worked fine. It is worth checking to see if things come lose because all the components heat up when the computer is on and cool down when off causing them to shift around slightly.

[carlos]

I think the washers weren't to stop earthing at the screws, but used to raise the motherboard away from the plate behind it. As far as I know Carbon doesn't conduct electricity, as it has a non-metallic structure. I think it is only slightly conductive when ground into a fine powder, but I'm not sure about that!

[j2buttonsw]

Carbon as graphite is a very good conductor of electricity. Carbon as diamond is not.

[lisaj]

So j2, are you suggesting he was given diamond washers?? I'd love to know where that shop is ;-)

[j2buttonsw]

LOL!

[Greedyfly]

Thankyou all for your ideas

[answerbok]

Finally fixed my 'similar' problem after weeks of fiddling about; I removed the cpu, daubed some thermal compound on it and Presto! - nice pc again. How do you know, it's not overheating, Greedyfly?